


Baby, Come On Home

by woodenducks



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Human Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:34:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27777703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodenducks/pseuds/woodenducks
Summary: Castiel is happy here. The apartment he’s moved into barely qualifies as a shoebox. The tattered curtains ripple on the sigh of a breeze coming in through the third-storey window. It’s so quiet he imagines he can hear the dust motes settling on the threadbare grey carpet. He doesn’t have a couch. Or a bed. His sleeping bag and pillow lie stretched in the corner of the single bedroom. The water-stained bathroom counter is a cracked brown plastic.But Castiel is happy here.Or, Castiel tries to create a life in Rexford.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47





	Baby, Come On Home

**Author's Note:**

> So, the formatting on this drove me mildly insane. Let me know in the comments if it's broken, and I will do my utmost to fix it while tearing out my hair!

Castiel is happy here.

The apartment he’s moved into barely qualifies as a shoebox. The tattered curtains ripple on the sigh of a breeze coming in through the third-storey window. The top of the table he’s sitting at is chipped Formica in an ugly salmon, and the metal-framed chair he’s perched on has a persistent wobble in the back left leg. His meagre collection of clothes sit unpacked still, one month on, as he cycles through six shirts and two pairs of pants over and over. His scalp itches from the cheap shampoo he’d picked up from the supermarket on Rexford’s main drag. It’s quiet. It’s so quiet he imagines he can hear the dust motes settling on the threadbare grey carpet. He doesn’t have a couch. Or a bed. His sleeping bag and pillow lie stretched in the corner of the single bedroom. The water-stained bathroom counter is a cracked brown plastic. 

But Castiel is happy here. 

Between days working at the Gas ‘n Sip, and nights alone in his new home, nose tucked into a book, reading for hours under the light of the main room’s single, bare bulb, he feels the pain to his loss start to ebb away. Dean came, ultimately not to take him home, but to see him. To check that he was doing okay. To touch base with a friend, an equal, and make sure that he was alive and well. 

Alive, he certainly is. Whether he’s well remains to be seen. 

When Dean’s car had pulled away from him that last time, it was like a single thread had been tied from the centre of his chest to the passenger seat, where he’d so desperately hoped he’d be sitting. And as Dean drove away, the Impala shrinking in the distance to a mere speck on the road, Castiel felt that thread pull, soft and first and then harder, yanking the weave of himself out into a sagging jumble at his feet. 

Dean hadn’t brought him home. Despite his fantasies and the hopes he’d kept clutched tight to his chest ever since the night Dean told him he had to leave the bunker, Dean had not come to save him. 

So instead he’s built himself some semblance of a life. The mundanity of it itches at him sometimes, and what used to be the roar of grace beneath his vessel’s skin becomes instead a muted hum in the middle of his very human stomach, growing softer with each passing day. He heats tins of soup on the small electric stove in the salmon pink kitchen. He stocks shelves of chips and jerky at work. He moves between these two locations like an automaton, because although he now moves through the world as a mortal, he has no idea how to truly exist within it. 

Is Castiel happy? He sometimes sits with the muted nothingness that churns softly in the centre of his chest, as he passes hours in the half-dark of his apartment. He doesn’t hurt anymore, not unless he really thinks hard about Dean and digs his fingers into that singular bruise. But he doesn’t... _what’s the opposite of hurt?_ , he wonders. He’s not soothed, not restful, not at peace. If anything he is becalmed, stranded, a ship at sea without a single breeze to push it in any direction. 

Is he happy? He considers it as he shuffles his deck of cards and lays out a game of solitaire. _No_ , he thinks. _No, I’m not._

  
: : : : :  


The answer to his happiness, Nora seems to think, lies in finding someone to share his time with. After the first ill-fated time he’d thought she was interested in him, he’s relaxed around her. And after seeing him climb out of Dean’s car in the previous night’s clothes — as Nora had noted with a pointed smile and a whispered “good for you, Steve” — she has infinitely relaxed around him. When she suggests that he try a dating app to meet someone new, he recoils at the thought initially. But Nora is kind, and good, and probably right. 

“Here,” she says, tapping the download button on something called Grindr. “Meet someone nice.” 

It takes Castiel about five seconds of looking at the app before he realises that “nice” may not be the overriding quality that these men possess. But he lets Nora take his photo, cajoling him into a half-smile that doesn’t even come close to reaching his eyes. He lets her upload the photo to his profile, set some of his basic information into the app. He takes his phone back as she presses it, firm and well-meaning, into his hands. 

“It’s hard,” she says. “Trust me, I know. But you can find someone. At least for a hot date!” 

And she smiles and winks and turns back to head into the store office. The phone feels heavy in Castiel’s hands. That familiar tug reaches into his chest again and pulls, yanks almost, tugging out the door and down the road, off in the direction Dean last drove. 

A handful of days later, Castiel finds himself sitting in the half-dark in his apartment, his spine resting against the unforgiving metal back of his kitchen chair. His hands itch. He’s come to realise that two of the worst human emotions — worse than pain and betrayal — is boredom and loneliness. The only person he talks to in town in Nora. If it weren’t for her, sometimes he thinks he may as well be a ghost. 

He turns his phone over in his hands, flipping it softly in his palm so that the screen faces up at him. He sees his reflection in the glass front; he looks tired. Sad. He wakes up the lock screen so he doesn’t have to look at himself any more. 

Once the phone is unlocked, he thumbs open the app Nora had put on there for him. The black and yellow home screen opens, showing a grid of pictures under a ‘Who’s Nearby’ heading. Rexford isn’t a hive of activity exactly, so Nora has set his search to a one hundred mile radius. Even then, the selection is small. Their pictures are boring and predictable: a muscle car, a shirtless torso, a firm backside in a pair of white boxer briefs. Castiel scrolls through them, wondering what he’s supposed to feel. Interest? Arousal? Excitement? He closes his eyes and tips his head back, the front of his throat stretching as his face tilts towards the light. Behind his eyelids he sees green eyes, freckles, a soft mouth twisted in a moue of distaste as it said: _you can’t stay_. 

Is that what he wants? 

He closes the app, but he must leave it logged in, because his phone pings with a handful of messages over the next few days. 

_ur hot, dtf?_

_Passing through Rexford, if you want to meet up._

_Hi. :)_

_u up?_

He doesn’t respond to any of them. 

  
: : : : :  


It happens eventually, with the inevitability of all things of this nature. 

Castiel has his phone out in the back room at work, and opens Grindr to delete another message that’s come through while he was on his shift. He doesn’t know why he hasn’t just removed the app yet. Part of his hopes that if he hangs onto it, he’ll figure out what the hell he wants. He can become more normal, more human, if he makes these kinds of connections. He’s yet to reply to any messages he’s received, but he can feel his resolve waning. If only just to feel, for a fleeting moment, less terribly alone. 

A profile photo of a nearby user catches his eye. Strong, stubbled jaw. Plush lips quirked in a half-grin. It’s familiar, the twist of that mouth. He’d know Dean anywhere. 

He taps on the profile. _D, 35, Looking for casual hook-up_. 55 miles away. The second picture on the profile is the Impala, as recognisable a car as he can imagine. That’s all the information there is. _Online now_ , flashes the little green dot. 

Online now. 55 miles away. Dean is 55 miles away from him right now. 

He has no proof that it even is Dean, of course. Just the car, the familiar smile. The fact that it’s a gay dating app in itself isn’t surprising — he knows Dean, has seen the parts of him that he tries to keep hidden. Castiel has pieced him back together, shred by shred. He knows the very core of him. 

The green dot flashes again, boldly tempting. 

He quits out of the app. When he opens it again after work, Dean is nowhere to be seen. 

  
: : : : :  


Castiel doesn’t open Grindr again, for his own sanity. 

He gets a text from Dean three days later. 

Dean  
  
**Today** 3:17 PM  
hey, coming your way back from a hunt. up for some company?  
  


Cas doesn’t know how to respond. It’s been weeks since he’d watched Dean drive away, and a sad part of him had expected that to be the last he’d ever see of him. The message is unexpected but not unwelcome. He feels colour rise in his cheeks as he replies. 

Dean  
  
hey, coming your way back from a hunt. up for some company?  
  
I'd like that. Let me know when you're in town.  
  
i'll be there in a couple of hours. what's your address?  
  


Castiel looks around the lonely apartment. It’s poorly lit, he realises, as though he doesn’t know he’s spent the last couple of months living in those shadows. He suddenly hates the idea of Dean being here, seeing the pathetic simulacrum of a home. It’s wrong. Dean would get the wrong impression. Despite the rusty kitchen faucet, the stained couch that he managed to salvage from the kerb, the solitary toothbrush in the bathroom, the fact that he’s still sleeping on a goddamn inflatable mattress — despite all this impermanence, he just knows that Dean would look at it all and somehow decide that Castiel is thriving. That he’s doing fine alone. 

He’s not sure what Dean’s motivation for that would be: assuaging his own guilt, maybe, at not letting Castiel stay at the bunker. Or maybe he’d do it to try and buoy Castiel’s spirits, as the bags under his eyes don’t exactly fill anyone with confidence that he’s happy and well-adjusted. Or maybe he’d say it just to be polite, or because he’s proud that Castiel has come this far alone and hadn’t just immediately ended up dead in a ditch like they’d all feared he would. 

He can’t let Dean in here. His grip on his existence here is tenuous at best, and the last thing he needs is Dean Winchester kicking open the door and tearing it all apart. 

Dean  
  
i'll be there in a couple of hours. what's your address?  
There's a diner, Speedy's, on Fifth Street. I can meet you there in two hours.  
sounds good buddy. see u soon  
  


  
: : : : :  


“So, you stayed, huh?” 

Dean has one large hand wrapped around a beer bottle, the other resting against the surface of the laminated table. Speedy’s is not really living up to its name, as they’ve had their dinner orders in for almost half an hour with no sign of their burgers appearing in the servery window. Cas would know: he’s compulsively checking the time on his phone, counting down the minutes til Dean will leave him again. 

“Yes,” he says. 

“Still working at the…” 

“The Gas ‘n Sip, yes,” 

Dean nods. His jaw sets. 

“You got an apartment?” 

Cas nods. “Just a small place. It’s...well, it’s nothing.” 

“It’s not nothing, Cas,” Dean says, his face softening. “I’d say you’re doing pretty good.” 

It’s not what he wants to hear. What he wants to hear is: _You’ve got a home with me, with Sam, in the bunker. You have a home forever, if you come back and claim it. Come back with me. Come home._

“Well,” says Castiel. “It could be worse, I imagine.” 

He remembers sleeping in the back room at the Gas ‘n Sip, and, before that, he remembers the homeless shelters, and, before that, he remembers the bite of the wind and the cold of the rain as he’d been alone in the elements. 

Dean nods, and stays quiet. Castiel wants to know what he’s thinking. His eyes dart between the small crease between Dean’s eyebrows, and Dean’s nimble fingers, which are peeling the label of his beer bottle and dropping the pieces in a small, shredded pile on the tabletop. 

Castiel clears his throat. 

“How was the hunt?” he asks. 

Dean shrugs. “Salt and burn,” he says. “Easy.” 

“Not thrown into too many walls today, then?” Cas asks, forcing a slight smile onto his lips. 

“Nope,” Dean smiles and shakes his head. “Nice outdoor setting, didn’t even have to dig that deep.” 

He imagines he can see the faintest trail of dirt under Dean’s fingernails. 

“How’s Sam?” Castiel asks. 

A cloud passes over Dean’s face, just for a moment, before it clears. 

“He’s good. Cleaning up things back at the base. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff we’ve found.” 

"Oh?” 

“Oh yeah,” Dean continues. “Cursed objects, magical items, a library with books on books — Sam is in nerd loser heaven right now.” 

Castiel hums. He can picture it: the bunker’s warm light, the gentle hum of the generators, the arch of the ceilings, and Sam hunched over a book in the library learning everything his delightful brain can absorb. It’s a wonderful image. 

He pointedly doesn’t think about the last time he was there, his stay briefly cut so short. 

“So,” Dean says as their food arrives, smiling at the waitress and adjusting the plate in front of him so that his burger is optimally positioned to be eaten at an alarming speed. 

“So what?” Castiel asks. 

Dean sighs once he’s practically inhaled half his meal, resting his hands on the green speckled tabletop. 

“So why are you here, Cas? You could go anywhere, right? Be anything? I know what I gave you wasn’t a lot, money-wise, but you could be doing anything you want right now. Running a blackjack scam in Vegas. Guiding nature walks at national parks. Curing freakin’ cancer, I don’t know.” 

Cas laughs, small and sad. Dean had high hopes for him, it seems. Or at least expectations that, if fulfilled, could absolve him of responsibility for Castiel’s wellbeing. Dean asked him to leave, he realises, so Dean needs to know that he’s okay. Dean, always so concerned for the wellbeing of those he loves, needs to know that he’s made the right decision — that Castiel is going to be okay. 

“To be honest, I don’t really know,” Castiel says. “Nora is nice. I have a home here, for what it’s worth. I think I needed to just stop, for a moment. To make some sense of all of this...human experience.” 

Dean taps his fingers on the tabletop. 

“There’s more to the human experience than living in a backwoods town like this, you know,” Dean says. 

“I know.” 

“Like, lots of good stuff. Like family. Like friends. Pie,” he grins. 

“You’re my family, Dean. My friend.” He knows he’s being blunt, and the wince on Dean’s face is all the confirmation he needs that he should have just kept his mouth shut. 

Castiel inhales. “Why can’t I come back with you?” he asks. 

Dean pushes his half-empty plate around. He doesn’t meet Castiel’s eyes. 

“It’s complicated,” he says. “I want you there, but there are some things I’ve gotta fix first.” 

“Like what?” 

Dean shrugs. “It’s complicated,” he repeats.

“Maybe I can help,” Cas says, his hands curling urgently in on themselves. “Tell me what’s happening and I can —” 

“No,” says Dean, sharp and sure. “You can’t.” 

Castiel leans back in his chair, deflated. “I see.” 

Dean clears his throat. “So,” he starts, his tone neutral. “Tell me more about Nora.” 

  
: : : : :  


After dinner, when he’s home again and tucked into his sleeping bag alone, Casiel stares up at the water-stained ceiling and wonders. He wonders why he hasn’t moved on, moved away, found a better job, started a better life. Dean’s absence and silence made it clear--clearer than his dismissal at the bunker had--that there was nothing for him with the Winchesters. So why is he still here in Rexford, working in this unfulfilling job, saving his meagre income to buy a set of plates that aren’t chipped, or a TV that works. 

In the dark, he replays the moment he walked into the diner and saw Dean sitting in a booth by the back wall, the green canvas of his jacket like familiar foliage, the softness of his eyes drawing him over to the table. His senses have been dulled by mortality, but he knows that if he’d breathed in deeply enough through his nose he could have smelled it, as soon as he walked through the door: leather seats, salt, that particular mix of sweat and deodorant that means _Dean_. 

Then he remembers the friendly clap on the shoulder Dean gave him before he’d left earlier tonight. The casual “I’ll see you ‘round, Cas.” The ruby glow of the tail lights as Dean pulled away from Speedy’s and headed down towards the interstate. 

He pulls the sleeping bag up tighter around his shoulders. His back is starting to ache from sleeping on the shitty air mattress Nora had gifted him when he first moved in. A loan, he’d insisted, but he still hadn’t managed to buy a bed of his own yet. 

Just before he drifts off to sleep, the answer comes to him: he’s here because this is the last place Dean saw him. If he leaves now, he’s afraid that Dean will never find him again. He stays in Rexford in case Dean decides to come and get him to bring him home. 

  
: : : : :  


Castiel’s life moves on unchanged. He moves from the apartment to work and back again, his feet carrying him the familiar path. Down three flights of stairs, along the street, around the corner, and then he’s basically there. Traverse between the counter and the stockroom, the shelves and the slushie machine. And then outside, around the corner, along the street, and up the stairs. Each day he pushes his key into the lock, shoulders the door open, and steps inside to blissful nothingness. 

He’s lonely. He’d felt loneliness before, when he’d been called away to heaven, or, worst, when he’d been forced to keep secrets from Dean. But he’d always had a greater purpose then, he’d always been chasing something, planning something, twisting the fabric of the world to make something important happen. 

Now he does nothing. He sits on his stained couch and tries to read a book, or scrolls through the news on his phone without absorbing any of it. He heats tinned ravioli, teaches himself to make a grilled cheese sandwich, eats bland cereal with half-fat milk because sometimes it seems like he can’t let himself have even the smallest pleasure. 

He recognises that he’s probably depressed. But the depth of human feelings — the sheer pain that comes with knowing that right beneath your feet lies a cavernous nothingness, while everything you’ve ever wanted lies just outside the grasp of your fallible hands — is new to him, so maybe this is just the way everyone feels. 

This can’t be how everyone feels. 

His phone pings. 

Dean  
  
**Tue, 1 Apr,** 3:31 PM  
There's a diner, Speedy's, on Fifth Street. I can meet you there in two hours.  
  
sounds good buddy. see u soon  
  
**Today,** 8:15 PM  
how are you going?  
  


Castiel snorts an angry sound. Four innocuous words, and he feels that ground beneath his feet start to splinter and split, the great black empty below him yawning up to meet him. 

Dean  
  
**Today,** 8:15 PM  
how are you going?  
  
Fine. Bored, maybe.  
  
you got a tv yet?  
  
No.  
  
maybe i can sort one out for you next time  
  


Next time. The idea that Dean would come back again, would drop in for a greasy meal and a meaningless conversation only to leave again, twists in his stomach. It would be better, he thinks, if Dean didn’t come back at all. 

He doesn’t reply to Dean’s message. Instead, he goes outside and downstairs and down the street, around the corner to the liquor store next door to the Gas ‘n Sip. He buys a cheap bottle of whiskey, the brand that he used to find stowed under the front seat of the Impala sometimes, in earlier days before Dean settled. He takes the bottle home, sits on the awful couch, and twists the lid off it. 

The smell of the alcohol is potent, stinging at his eyes. It reminds him of Dean, of the tang of it on Dean’s breath when he was drunk and angry, when he’d use cheap bourbon to dull his senses and close off the walls around his heart. Castiel knew, because Castiel could feel everything about Dean. Could. Not anymore. 

He picks up the bottle and tips it into his mouth. Whiskey floods his tongue, sharp and acrid and wholly unpleasant. He coughs, swallows, coughs again. It tastes different this time, as a human. 

He makes himself drink more. He drinks more until he’s spinning in it, his head cloudy and finally quiet. He tries to pull his phone out of his pocket, but his fingers feel clumsy and uncoordinated. His head spins; he feels sick. His body is uncooperative and his stomach is roiling, just like those first few days when he was shoved into this vessel, wholly human. 

Is this what Dean wants to feel when he drinks like this? 

His phone feels heavy in his hand. He thumbs it open, swipes to the last screen of apps, and opens Grindr. He looks at the paltry options of local men, their faces obscured, their hearts unknowable. He doesn’t want them, because they’re not Dean. 

He’s always loved Dean, he knows. But now, when he’s alone in this vessel — _his body_ — without the roar of grace and the power of heaven thrumming in the background, he can feel it now. He can feel it like a knife to his chest. It tingles down into his fingers, makes the hairs on his arms stand up, echoes down into his very toes with the force of it. He raises a hand to his chest, places it over his heart. It beats, steadily and quickly, against his palm. 

He has a couple of unopened messages in the app. He taps the first one in the inbox. _You seem nice, which is sadly unusual for this sort of thing. Can I buy you a drink?_ He taps on the man’s profile. 20 miles away. Warm smile, dark hair. Brown eyes. Brown, brown, brown. 

Castiel exits out of the app, and deletes it from his phone. 

  
: : : : :  


Dean comes back a few weeks later, on a perfect June afternoon, stopping by the Gas ‘n Sip and swaggering through the doors. 

“I’m taking you to dinner,” Dean says as he fiddles with the packets of nuts hanging by the checkout. The sleeves of his grey henley are pushed up to his elbows. His eyes are evasive. 

“I’m working,” Castiel says. 

“Then I’ll wait til you’re done.” 

Castiel doesn’t expect Dean to wait. He’s not sure when this coldness and surety settled into him, but he can feel it inside him, he can grope around its edges and feel where he laid it, brick by brick, to keep Dean out. 

But he does wait. He sits in the Impala in the parking lot, fiddling with his phone and drumming his hands on the steering wheel in time to the radio. Castiel watches him while he pretends to clean the windows by the sunglasses display. 

At nine o’clock he wraps up and hands the keys over to Nancy, who works the graveyard shift. 

“You got a friend out there,” Nancy says, and it’s not a question. 

Castiel just pulls the corners of his mouth into a weak facsimile of a smile. 

“Something like that,” he says. 

“He’s cute,” she says, grinning at him knowingly. He wants to laugh, to join in on the joke. But instead he just stumbles out of the store, hip checking against the glass door as he goes. 

He doesn’t get into the Impala. Some part of him can’t stomach the thought of sliding back onto the smooth leather of the seats. Not when he’ll have to just get out again. Not unless he’s going home. 

“Let’s walk,” he says to Dean. 

Dean shrugs, winds up the window and steps out of the car. He seems so big to Castiel, so real, from the tips of his hair to the scuffed soles of his boots. He’s so utterly, devastatingly present. Castiel wants to reach out and lay a hand on him. But he doesn’t. 

They walk the few blocks to Speedy’s in relative quiet. Dean makes small talk about the drive, the case he’d been working nearby. It isn’t until they’re seated in a vinyl-upholstered booth that Castiel feels himself relax. 

“How’s Sam?” he asks. 

Dean tenses. “He’s fine.” 

“He’s not with you?” 

“Nah, he’s working on something back at the bunker.” 

Castiel frowns. “I don’t like the idea of you hunting alone,” he says. 

“I’m fine, Cas.” 

Castiel hums his disagreement. 

They talk little during the meal. Castiel scrapes around in his mind for something to talk about, but comes up empty-handed. He doesn’t have anything to share — no adventures, no mishaps, no grand schemes to save the world. His life has become so small. 

Dean is evasive about the bunker, and Sam. Instead he tells some stories from the road, about a really great burger he had in Wyoming, about a chili cook-off at a town fair in New Mexico. About a flock of birds he saw at sundown just outside of Rexford, flying in formation, a twisting cloud of fluttering wings in the last of the light. A murmuration, Castiel thinks, but doesn’t say. 

Castiel used to know all parts of Dean. Until he’d learned about human boundaries, he’d been able to see deep within Dean, to the very core of him, with little more than a thought. He’d since pulled that back, knowing better than to pry, but he still knows when Dean is hiding something. 

After dinner, they walk back to the Gas ‘n Sip. Dean waits by the Impala, his hand resting on the top of her roof, palm flat and open. His other hand fiddles with the car keys. 

“Sure you don’t wanna show me your place, Cas?” he asks. 

Castiel knows it’s not the invitation he wants it to be. He thinks of romantic comedies and sitcoms on TV, how characters invite one another or themselves up for coffee, a nightcap, as a pretence for romance. For connection. This isn’t that. 

Dean’s face is a juxtaposition. His features are both open and closed, drawing Castiel in while simultaneously holding him at arm’s length. 

“No,” Castiel says. “Maybe another time.” 

Dean looks down and away. His hand curls into a fist on the car’s roof. He looks back at Castiel and his eyes are _green, green, green_ , open and imploring, and Castiel wants to swan-dive into them and drown in their depths. He wants to reach out and wrap his fingers in Dean’s jacket, pull him close and beg him to stay, to take him back, to take him home, to just _stop_ for one moment and _hold him_. 

Is this always what it’s like for humans? This terrifying free-falling? His breath catches in his throat, like his airways are constricting by the second, and any moment now he’ll cease to breathe. 

Dean looks away again, casts his eyes down and bumps his fist on the roof of the car. 

“Another time, then,” he says. He opens the car door and slides into the seat. The look he gives Castiel just before he drives away is inscrutable — not because Castiel can’t parse it, but because the weight of it is too much to bear. 

He goes back to his apartment. It is cold, and empty, and lonely. He still doesn’t have a bed. 

  
: : : : :  


Castiel doesn’t see Dean again for three months. 

It’s a long drive from Kansas to Idaho. He knows, because he sat on buses for hours to get here, to put that precise distance between him and Dean in the first place. But the couple of visits Dean’s made so far have given him hope — maybe a false hope after all — that he wouldn’t languish here alone. 

The weather shifts from the sharp summer sun to a muted warmth as the seasons tick over into fall. 

He’s waiting for Dean, he knows. It’s sad and unfortunate and pathetic, but it’s the truth. He can’t leave, he can’t move on, but he can’t settle here either. He can’t dig roots into the earth here. He can’t furnish his apartment, can’t learn recipes or make friends or become a regular at the coffee shop around the corner from the laundromat where he washes the clothes that he won’t buy more of. He can’t own things. He can’t build any sense of permanence here, just in case. 

It’s mid-morning on his day off, and he’s sitting on the couch and reading _Middlemarch_ when his phone pings. 

Dean  
  
**Today,** 10:26 AM  
found a new recipe for pumpkin soup  
  


Castiel looks at the phone, bewildered. His phone chimes again. 

Dean  
  
**Today,** 10:26 AM  
found a new recipe for pumpkin soup  
  
pumpkin, maple syrup, bacon, cinnamon. topped with crispy bacon and maple burnt butter  
  
cas it’s so good  
  


He blinks at the screen. He considers his response. 

Dean  
  
cas it’s so good  
  
That sounds impressive.  
  
it is  
  
i'll make it for you when i come through next  
  
You don't have to do that.  
  


It’s not what he wants to say. What he wants is to shake the phone, to shout at it: _When?!_ Three months of silence and then a message about soup. He lets out a groan of sheer frustration and drops the phone onto the couch to run his hands through his hair. His phone beeps again. 

Dean  
  
i'll make it for you when i come through next  
  
You don't have to do that.  
  
i want to  
  


This is what Dean does, his logical brain reasons. He cares about people. He shares that caring through service, through favours, though practical, physical objects he can hand people and say: Look, I made this for you, because I love you. He knows Dean well enough to recognise that part of him. 

But then he looks around the empty apartment, the uncultivated land that he’s squatting on, and his chest feels hollow. 

Dean  
  
You don't have to do that.  
  
i want to  
  
Okay.  
  


He doesn’t know what else to say. His fingers type it out: I miss you. He deletes the text before sending it. He thinks in his head: _I love you_. His fingertips ghost over the keyboard on the screen, imagining writing it, sending it. Why not? he thinks. Why shouldn’t he just say it? It’s not going to change anything between them. It won’t bring Dean magically to his side, across that vast distance that they’ve let grow between them. But the words would be there, a life raft in the empty sea. Something he could cling onto in the rolling dark. 

He doesn’t send it. His phone stays silent for the rest of the night. 

  
: : : : :  


He hears more from Dean over the next couple of weeks, like some small crack has appeared in the dam and a faint trickle of water is making its way down to quench parched earth. 

Dean  
  
**Today,** 9:13 PM  
the only channel the tv in this place picks up is star trek next gen  
  
and the couple in the next room are having a loud shouting match  
  


Dean’s on the road, then, it seems. 

Dean  
  
and the couple in the next room are having a loud shouting match  
  
What are they fighting about?  
  
idk, it seems like he’s a shitty driver and they had a near death experience on the interstate  
  
Sounds dramatic.  
  
better than a soap opera  
  
Nothing is better than a soap opera. I know you too well to believe that.  
  


The phone sits silent. He sees the little three dots appear below his message, like Dean’s typing a reply. The dots disappear, then reappear, then disappear again. 

Dean  
  
better than a soap opera  
  
Nothing is better than a soap opera. I know you too well to believe that.  
  
god, now they're making up  
  
also loudly  
  
I've heard that a near-death experience can unleash all sorts of repressed emotions.  
  


He’s not trying to be coy, it just comes out that way. He immediately wants to take it back. 

Dean  
  
also loudly  
  
I've heard that a near-death experience can unleash all sorts of repressed emotions.  
  
Not that we'd know anything about that.  
  
not us  
  
nope  
  
god i'm tired of being on the road  
  
i love diner food, don't get me wrong  
  
but i miss having a kitchen  
  


Castiel smiles to himself. He likes to think of Dean in the bunker’s kitchen, moving comfortably around the space, making food for himself and Sam, caring for his family. His mind glosses over the empty seat at their table that he’d hoped would be his. 

Dean  
  
but i miss having a kitchen  
  
It must be nice, to have a home to go back to.  
  
i wanted it to be your home too  
  
cas, i'm trying to fix it  
  
trust me  
  


He considers. He wants to believe Dean. He wants to cling onto that hope like a drowning man clutching onto driftwood at sea. 

Dean  
  
cas, i'm trying to fix it  
  
trust me  
  
I trust you, Dean.  
  


_I love you_ , he wants to say. _I love you, you’re everything, don’t forget about me_. 

  
: : : : :  


It’s mid-September when Castiel checks his phone on his break at work. 

Dean  
  
**Today,** 11:01 AM  
hey i'll be coming through town on sep 18 🎂   
  


He stops for a moment. It takes him a minute to puzzle out the emoticon. Then he remembers. A pained half-laugh wrenches out of his throat. He supposes every human needs a birthday. 

Dean  
  
**Today,** 11:01 AM  
hey i'll be coming through town on sep 18 🎂   
  
I don’t really have a birthday, but thank you for the sentiment.  
  
It would be good to see you regardless.  
  
birthday cake is a human joy, man   
  
and u need to experience it   
  


September 18 dawns clear and cool. Castiel isn’t working today, and he feels untethered. The idea of seeing Dean again is sparking something within him, low in his core. He was right to stay here. He was right to wait. 

Dean knocks on his door just after 10 o’clock. Castiel pulls the front door open, and Dean is standing there, denim and flannel and canvas and smiling almost nervously as Castiel ushers him inside. Dean holds a white box in his hands, which he passes to Castiel as he enters the room. 

“I know I said birthday cake is important, but birthday pie is even better,” he says. 

Castiel opens the box. Sweet, tangy, rich aromas float up out of the box. The pie has a delicate lattice of pastry over a dark red filling. He can’t stop staring at it. 

“Uh, there was a bakery in this town I passed through,” says Dean, sounding hesitant. Castiel snaps his eyes up to Dean’s face. Dean looks thoughtful. Considered. 

“And if you’re going to have the option, well. Always go for pie,” he continues. “Even if there probably aren’t enough candles in the world to hit your actual age.” 

Castiel watches as Dean looks around the apartment. Even though he spends every day and night here, it’s like he’s seeing it for the first time with Dean in the room. The Formica table with a single chair. The stained couch. The torn linoleum in the kitchen. The tragedy of a toaster oven. The single bowl and spoon in the drying rack. The great, unadorned wasteland of the walls, which he couldn’t bring himself to put up a single personal item—not a photo, not a picture, not a cheap dollar-store reprint of a Van Gogh, even. 

Dean walks over to the couch and sits. He looks wrong there, all wrong, like a puzzle piece jammed into an ill-fitting gap in the picture. Castiel should be happy to see him here. But he’s not. Having Dean here just makes it even clearer what a farce his existence here is. 

He puts the pie down on the kitchen counter, and walks over to sit next to Dean on the couch. 

“So,” Dean says. He clears his throat, looks around the room again. “You doin’ okay?” 

“Not really,” Castiel says candidly. 

Dean nods slowly, looking at his boots. 

“I’d have you back if I could, Cas, you have to know that,” he says. 

Castiel inhales through his nose, slowly and deliberately. 

“Then why am I still here?” he asks. He sounds petulant, ungrateful to his own ears, and he hates it. 

“Because,” Dean says, picking at the seam of his jeans. “Because I fucked up. Cas, I fucked up.” 

His face is pained, when he turns to look Castiel in the eyes. Cas wants nothing more than to swoop in and gather Dean in his arms, to whisper forgiveness into his skin. But he holds himself back. 

“What happened?” he asks instead. 

“I can’t tell you,” Dean says, gritting his teeth. “God, this fucking sucks. I shouldn’t even be here. But I couldn’t just...I drive away from you every time and I...Cas, you deserve so much more than this.” 

Dean gestures around the one-room apartment. 

“You deserve so much more. You deserve everything. And I couldn’t give it to you.” 

“I don’t understand,” Castiel says, because he doesn’t. He hates not understanding, not being able to grasp a concept in an instant, intuit feelings and realities with a tilt of his head. 

“It’s Sam,” Dean says. “I fucked up, and now you can’t come home until I fix it. But I can’t do this without you. I don’t want to be without you.” 

Castiel doesn’t know what to say. He can’t understand _what Dean’s saying_. Frustration gathers, fuzzy, at the back of his head. 

“Can I help you fix it?” he asks. 

Dean shakes his head, miserable. 

“No, I—I need to find a way myself. I’ve got some options, I’ve got contacts, I’ll…” Dean stops, reaches out a hand and places it, hot and light, on Castiel’s knee. “I just don’t want you to be here alone. I don’t want you to think that I don’t want you with us.” 

Cas stares at Dean’s hand. It feels warm and real through the denim of his jeans. 

“Dean,” he starts, his throat dry. “Dean, what are you saying?” 

Dean lifts his hand off Castiel’s knee, and reaches up, forward, sliding his palm over Castiel’s shoulder instead. His grip is tight, desperate. He looks at Castiel, looks into him with loud eyes. His thumb brushes against Castiel’s collarbone, trembling minutely. 

“I’m saying that I…” he trails off, voice quiet. “I’m saying—happy birthday, Cas.” 

Castiel closes his eyes. He can’t look at Dean any more, lest that secret part of himself bursts out and makes itself known. He can’t. Dean’s whole posture, his voice, his words all scream with suffering. Dean is hurting. He can’t make that worse. He keeps his eyes closed, his face turned away. He feels Dean’s hand leave his shoulder, feels the slight jostle as Dean gets up from the couch. He hears his footsteps on the linoleum, hears the front door open and settle closed with a gentle click. 

Castiel breathes out, a shaky exhale from the very foundation of his lungs. He hadn’t realised he’d been holding his breath. 

When he opens his eyes again, he’s alone in the apartment. If it weren’t for the cherry pie sitting still on the kitchen counter, and the ghost-like warmth of Dean’s hand on his shoulder, he would have no reason to believe Dean had been here at all. 

  
: : : : :  


Dean  
  
**Sun, 28 Sep** 2:43 PM  
yellowstone is real pretty this time of year  
  
**Fri, 3 Oct** 9:56 AM  
why doesn’t it get cold in southern california? it’s like they’re cheating  
  
**Sun, 5 Oct** 12:03 PM  
saw a cat today that reminded me of you  
  
Should I take that as a compliment?  
  
definitely. it was very refined  
  
a lot reminds me of you these days  
  
Me too. I saw a sunset the other day, and its colours reminded me of the exact burnished brightness of your soul.  
  
I wish I could still see it.  
  
the sunset?  
  
No.  
  
**Sat, 11 Oct** 8:16 PM  
did you know that a mosquito has 47 teeth?  
  
Yes.  
  
well...fine  
  
**Sat, 18 Oct** 11:11 AM  
have you ever tried funnel cake?  
  
I don't think so.  
  
youd know if you had. I’m at this town fair in oregon rn and i just ate like three of them  
  
That sounds...unhealthy.  
  
im unstoppable  
  
**Mon, 20 Oct** 1:41 AM  
what r we doin here cas?   
  
Texting.  
  
no, thats not what i mean  
  
i mean, what are you and i doing?  
  
I don't know, Dean.  
  
i know what i wanna be doing with you  
  
christ i can't stop thinking about you  
  
Are you drunk?  
  
no  
  
yes  
  
im sorry cas god i  
  
Drink some water and go to sleep, Dean. I’ll talk to you when you’re feeling better.  
  
you’re everything cas everything  
  


Castiel doesn't know what to do with this message. He doesn't know how to tamp down the great well of sadness that's bursting forth within him. Dean's drunk, he's not thinking clearly, he doesn't want...He can't want...

Dean doesn't message again that night, even though Castiel lies awake in the dark, waiting for the buzz and the chime from his phone that will doesn't come.

His message tone goes the next morning instead, rousing him, fuzzy-headed and still mostly asleep.

Dean  
  
you’re everything cas everything  
  
**Today,** 10:03 AM  
god, my head  
  
Did you drink the water like I told you?  
  
maybe  
  


Dean goes silent for a few days, leaving Castiel to pick up his routine: home, work, work, home, where he lies in bed rereading Dean's last messages. _I can't stop thinking about you. You're everything._

In the dark at night, he repeats it over and over to himself, clinging onto the words, his breath catching in his throat. 

Dean  
  
**Thu, 23 Oct** 16:54 PM  
its not just when i drink, you know.  
  
What's not?  
  
i think about you all the time.  
  
Oh.  
  
I think about you, too.  
  
**Mon, 27 Oct** 11:17 AM  
do you prefer zep 2 or 3?  
  
I don't know.  
  
man i am making you a mixed tape  
  
**Fri, 31 Oct** 9:18 PM  
happy halloween 🎃  
  
🧙  
  
god damn i hate witches  
  
**Tue, 4 Nov** 11:27 PM  
hey go outside and look for orions belt  
  
It's overcast here.  
  
Why do you want me to look?  
  
because i'm looking at it  
  
and i want to know if i can feel it when you're looking at it too  
  
Are you high, Dean?  
  
no, god, just  
  
wait, who taught you about getting high?  
  
nevermind, just go look  
  
I'm looking.  
  
Can you feel it, then?  
  
i think i can feel it  
  


  
: : : : :  


Despite the passing of the season from summer into fall, the only change in Castiel’s life is the turning of the leaves on the trees lining the streets: verdant green becomes sickly yellow, a muted orange. It becomes properly cold. At least he has a roof over his head. He and Dean talk more now. Mostly nonsense messages. The occasional heartfelt sentiment slipping through the cracks. After a while, Castiel tries to stop reeling them back in. Instead he lets the feelings float from him, like so many threads from a well-worn sweater. 

It turns cold in November. The heating in his apartment building leaves a lot to be desired. The window panes are frosted over in the early dawn light. He looks up at the tendrils of frost creeping over the glass, just visible through the sun-stained curtains in his bedroom. He’s still sleeping on a mattress on the floor. It’s been months, and he’s still living like any day now, Dean will appear and bring him home. 

The loneliness he’s been feeling has become like a warm bath. It’s comforting, it’s contained, it’s familiar. He knows where its edges lie. He can sink down into it and just be there, steeped in it, safe within it. 

When Dean turns up a week later, it’s like he reaches in and pulls the plug. 

Castiel receives a message early in the morning. He wakes up to it flashing on his phone. 

Dean  
  
**Today,** 6:43 AM  
sam's gonna be okay. please come home now, cas  
  
i'll be there soon. just wait for me  
  


He wants to laugh, dry and aching. As if he’s been doing anything other than waiting, all this time. Castiel calls Nora and, for the first time since he moved here, excuses himself from work. And then he waits. 

He hears Dean long before he sees him: the Impala rumbling up the street; Dean’s boots hammering on the internal stairs to stop outside his front door; the hurried, fervent banging of a fist against the door. 

He opens it without hesitation. There on the other side, his eyes wild and breath coming hard despite the short climb, stands Dean. 

“Cas,” Dean says in a sigh, reaching and and pulling Castiel to him. He feels Dean’s arms circle firmly around his back, feels Dean’s fists pressing between his shoulder blades. He raises his own arms and awkwardly hugs Dean in return before pulling back. 

“Sam?” he asks. 

“Fine, he’s fine,” Dean says with a smile of relief. “God, can I come in?” 

Castiel steps aside and lets Dean pass. 

“Are you going to tell me what happened now?” he asks. 

Dean looks away, looks guilty. Whereas before he’d seemed to fill the room, now it seems to encroach upon him. 

“I fucked up.” 

Castiel waits. 

“He was dying, Cas. I had to save him.” 

“What did you do?” 

Dean sighs, his expression pinched. He sits against the arm of the sofa, which creaks under him. “I let an angel possess him,” he says. 

Castiel is shocked, his head spinning. For Dean to have done this, to have let this happen to Sam...he can't imagine how dire the situation must have been. The way Dean must have carried this burden, the guilt of it splitting him nearly in two. He wishes Dean could have told him. He wishes he could have been powerful enough to help.

“Who?” he asks. 

“Gadreel,” Dean says. “But I didn’t know who it was, he told me he was Ezekiel, I...God, I was just desperate for an answer. I prayed and he came and I...I had my brother back. I couldn’t lose Sammy again.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Castiel asks. 

“I couldn’t. Sam needed his power to stay alive. If I told you what had happened, Gadreel would have left, and Sam would have _died_ , Cas. I couldn’t let him die.” 

Castiel looks down at his human hands. 

“And I couldn’t heal him,” he says. “Not this time.” 

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Dean says. “I don’t care if you can heal him or not. I don’t care if you’re juiced up or just kicking it like the rest of us. It doesn’t matter to me. I hated asking you to leave. I hated you leaving because of my fucked up choices.” 

“Dean, I — I’m nothing without my grace, do you understand? I’m weak, I’m _human_ , I’m fallible and breakable and _lost_. It...it makes sense to me, why you wouldn’t want me to stay.” 

Dean huffs angrily, standing up and pacing to over to the table where Castiel stands, his hands clenched into fists. “I’ve always wanted you to stay. Like I said, I don’t care what you are. You’re _you_. You’re you and I need you.” 

Dean looks broken. His eyes are green, so green, and they’re pleading with Castiel. He’s standing so close, Castiel could reach out, not even that far, and press his hand against Dean’s cheek. 

“Where’s Gadreel now?” Castiel asks. 

“Gone,” says Dean. 

Castiel swallows. He knows the power it can take to cast out an angel who doesn't want to leave. “How?” he asks. 

Dean wrings his hands together. 

“There was a spell. Crowley helped me find it, of all people.” Dean grins with an angry twist of his mouth. Castiel feels a little sick. 

“I know,” says Dean. “I know, Cas. But I was desperate. And now it’s done.” 

“And Crowley?” Cas asks, afraid of the answer, of the deal Dean might have made to get his brother back. 

“Gone, for now,” Dean says. He runs his fingers over the top of the metal kitchen chair, stopping to rub his thumb over a knot where the metal’s been welded into place. 

Dean looks at Castiel, really looks at him. Castiel feels rooted to the spot. 

“Please come home, Cas,” Dean says, his voice soft. “I need you. I can’t take it anymore. Please, please come home.” 

Castiel feels very small standing there in the single room of his home, feels miniscule even in this tiny apartment. Dean fills the room, all of it, every last corner, with the brightness of his soul that Castiel still imagines he can see. 

“Okay,” he says. 

And then Dean’s stepping forward, closing the scant two paces between them, settling his hands on Castiel’s shoulders. 

“Yeah?” he asks, breathless and soft, like he’s scared to hope for the answer. 

Castiel nods. “Yes, Dean. Take me home.” 

Dean sighs, relief flooding his face. His hands tighten on Castiel’s shoulders, thumbs pressing into trapezoids. With a gentle pressure from his fingers, Dean pulls Castiel forward, just slightly, until they’re hovering even closer into each other’s orbit. 

Castiel doesn’t close his eyes when Dean kisses him. He watches the gentle flutter of Dean’s eyelashes, looks at the soft lines at the corner of Dean’s eyes, the gentle arch of his brow. Dean’s mouth is soft and warm and chaste, his kiss so sweet that Castiel could cry. 

Dean pulls back, thumbs still rubbing gently over Castiel’s shoulders. Castiel suddenly remembers how his body works, how his limbs move, and lifts his hands to Dean’s waist, sliding one palm to the small of Dean’s back. Dean grins, relief flashing across his features. This time, when he leans in, Castiel meets him halfway. 

Kissing Dean is a revelation. He’s spent years thinking about it, at first as a passing curiosity, and then, when he’d figured out how he felt, as a more active daydream, a well-worn fantasy. Nothing he’d imagined could compare, though, to the softness of Dean’s lips, the wet warmth of his mouth as he opens himself to Castiel, deepens the kiss. One of Dean’s hands slides up to cup the back of Castiel’s head, softly like it’s something precious. Castiel’s own hands are trembling at Dean’s waist, one hand grabbing a fistful of Dean’s flannel shirt and twisting it, using it to pull Dean closer. 

Dean shuffles against Cas, pressing him backwards until the kitchen table bumps against the back of his thighs. He lets go of Dean’s shirt to reach behind himself, brace a hand on the edge of the table, and hoist himself to sit on the formica surface. Dean moves in to stand between Castiel’s open knees, mouth moving more hungrily now, tongue darting out to lick into Castiel’s mouth. 

Dean groans. Castiel sighs. The table creaks ominously beneath him. 

“We should go somewhere less likely to end in injury,” Dean murmurs, pulling away just an inch, his forehead resting against Castiel’s. 

“I don’t want to stop kissing you,” Castiel says, chasing Dean’s mouth with his own. 

“We don’t ever have to stop,” Dean says. The table creaks again, louder this time. Dean taps Castiel on the hip, urging him down and off the table. 

“We don’t have to stop, but we do have to move,” he says. 

They end up on the couch, the horrible couch Castiel brought out of the rain and into his home. Castiel lets Dean push him back against the cushions, lets Dean crawl into his lap and bear his weight down upon him. He lets Dean run his fingers down his chest, touch his thighs, his back, his knees. He returns the touch in kind, with passion that has not dulled through years of disuse but intensified into a roaring fire. The whole time, Dean’s mouth never leaves his. Not when Dean’s hands reach down and unbutton Castiel’s shirt, not when Castiel slides his hands into the back of Dean’s jeans. Dean doesn’t seem to want to stop kissing him at all, not even for a moment, not even to remove his shirt, which frustrates Castiel momentarily until Dean’s clever hands slip down and undo the button of Castiel’s pants. 

He hadn’t expected it would feel like this. His human experience had been a caged thing, bound within a perimeter of sadness, loss, disconnection, disappointment. He had yet to experience this: joy, relief, the redamancy of loving and being loved in return. Now that he has it, he burns with it from the inside out; he can feel it lighting him in his very core, threatening to leak out of his eyes, his fingertips, the soles of his feet. 

When Dean takes them both in his hand, the hot press of flesh against firm flesh, Castiel could weep with the holiness of it. Instead he cries out, calling Dean’s name into the emptiness of the room. Dean quiets him with a kiss, with a whisper: “It’s okay, Cas, I’m here, I’ve got you, I’m here.” When he comes, it’s with Dean’s lips sucking kisses against his throat, with one of his hands tucked up the front of Dean’s shirt, his hand resting firmly over the rapid beating of Dean’s heart. 

  
: : : : :  


They stay up late into the night, squashed together on Castiel’s air mattress, blissfully, finally naked. Castiel can’t stop running his hands over Dean’s perfect skin, tracing freckles with his fingertips, running his thumbs over the softness of Dean’s stomach and the firm curve of his buttocks. Dean rests his head on Castiel’s chest, one arm slung low around Castiel’s waist. 

One night in Dean's arms won't undo the hurt and the pain of his human existence so far, but he can feel the claws he'd sunk into his life start to retract a little, easing their hold, dulling the sting. With time, he imagines, it will fade completely. It's a remarkable human trait — the ability to forgive, to forget, to grow and change and proceed in togetherness, despit the pain of the past.

It’s quiet in the small bedroom Castiel’s called home for the last few months. The traffic sounds that usually keep him awake have faded into something more muted, barely tickling at the edge of his hearing. His every sense seems to be filled with Dean: the feel of smooth skin, the musk of worn cologne and car leather, the sight of Dean’s limbs tangled loosely with Castiel’s own, the taste of sweat and skin still lingering on Castiel’s lips, the sound of Dean’s voice as he talks about the bunker, the room he’s set aside for Castiel, the meals he promises to cook for him once he’s living there for good this time. 

“We should get some sleep soon, though,” Dean says. “Big drive tomorrow.” 

Castiel hums in agreement, voice already threaded through with sleep. 

Dean’s silent for a moment, his thumb rubbing over the tattoo on Castiel’s ribs. 

“I’m sorry it took me so long,’ he says. 

“It doesn’t matter,” says Castiel, feeling something loosen in his chest with the admission. “You’re here now.” 

Dean’s hand tightens on Castiel’s waist, and he turns his head to press an open-mouthed kiss to Castiel’s chest. 

“Love you, you know,” he murmurs softly. 

Cas runs a hand up Dean’s arm, to his shoulder, to his chin, which he lifts so he can look Dean into Dean’s face. His eyes are clear, honest, warm, sincere. 

“I know,” says Castiel. “I mean, I’d hoped. I’d hoped for a very long time, without really knowing what the feeling meant. You are impossible, irrepressible, and I adore you with everything that I am, was, and will ever be.” 

Dean’s cheeks flush pink, and he drops his eyes. “God, you’re really outdoing my declaration here, Cas,” he says, although his voice is warm. 

“It means everything to me, to hear you say it,” Cas says. 

“Well, I mean it,” says Dean. “I love you.” He leans up, propping himself on his elbow to lean over Castiel where he lies against the sole pillow. He drops his lips to Castiel’s and kisses him sweetly, his mouth perfection and forgiveness and acceptance and _home_. 

“I love you, too,” Castiel breathes into the space between them when they finally break apart. 

Dean grins at him, then twists over to turn off the lamp, spilling night across the room. 

Lying in the dark with Dean wrapped warm around him, Castiel feels his future laying itself in an open path in front of him. They’ll leave for Lebanon in the morning. He is, for the first time in a long time — or maybe even just for the first time — happy. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me reblogging Dean gifs on at [woodenducks on Tumblr](https://woodenducks.tumblr.com/).


End file.
